Spherical rollers, i.e. having a barrel shaped main diameter and a spherical end face for thrusting against the rib of an assembled bearing raceway, are employed in antifriction roller bearing assemblies to permit swiveling of the inner and outer raceways relative to one another, i.e., the rollers are carried by a conventional cage between complimentary forms in the raceways.
As in most roller bearings, the rollers are ground to present the finest possible finishing and sizing attributes to the rollers. Prior art finishing methods include carrying the rough-formed rollers on a first fixturing set up and driving same while grind forming the main diameter in a production operation. Subsequent operations are performed, which include carrying the workpieces to a secondary set up where they are refixtured and journaled on the previously ground diameter and the end spherical form is then finished in a secondary machine and set-up. The problem inherent in the separated finishing operations is that it is difficult to maintain the colinearity of the diametral axis and the radius point of the spherical end form.